Homeopathy vol.1

Homeopathy vol.1

A few years ago, after having had many unsuccessful conventional treatments for my eczema-like skin symptoms and insomnia, I started to wonder if there were any other ways to get myself better and fix whatever was lingering and failing to be cured. Sometimes you feel like your health practitioner isn't really listening to you when you try to explain your symptoms to them and you land up going home with a prescription you know isn't going to fix you. In my case, I went home with a scabies treatment, a bottle of highly potent solution to kill scabies for the dry patch on my leg: fine, if you have scabies. After applying the neat solution I came up in the most violent hives and spots all over my body from head to toe, which turned into scabs of pus and bloody crusts. Itchy beyond belief and ugly as you can imagine. It took a month of applying steroid creams to get back to where I started.

After this experience I decided to try out other forms of treatments to remedy my symptoms and Homeopathy was one which really had an effect on me.

I learned that Homeopathy works on the viewpoint that your symptoms, whether physical or emotional, are a natural reaction to an imbalance in your body and that by stimulating your body's healing mechanism you get better, meaning that you look at the root cause of your symptoms. This philosophy is actually the opposite of modern medicine in that with modern medicine, when there is something wrong, you take drugs to suppress or mask the symptoms instead of looking at the root cause of what is wrong with you.

If your body is built to repair itself, which is exactly what it aims to do, it would make sense that by stimulating its healing mechanism your body can regain health.

Take your immune system as a simple example. The function of the immune system is to defend the body against invaders, which are anything the body recognises as not belonging in the system. The strategy of the immune system is simple but highly sophisticated: recognise the enemy, mobilise force and attack. We have this in-built highly intelligent mechanism that is constantly trying to achieve optimum health rather than it deteriorating and making us ill.

So learning that you can help your body to heal itself and how to go about it is a good knowledge to have. My intention for this series of articles is to inform you that sometimes you can try an alternative method which works well, as well as giving you more control over how you treat your body without the worry of it becoming addictive or having any nasty side effects. All homeopathic remedies can be administered alongside conventional medicines without any side effects, so if there is a way to treat any symptoms without the worry of having to be on ongoing medication, there is no reason not to try it out.

So here is a little background to Homeopathy, who pioneered it, how it works and what kind of things you can treat with it.

Homeopathy is a form of medicine that has been in use for over 200 years, developed by a German physician named Samuel Hahneman. Hahneman began his career as a doctor but soon became aware that his medicines were causing more side effects than curing his patients. The core principle of homeopathy is based on like cures like, meaning that the substance which, when taken by a heathy person, would produce symptoms similar to those shown in the person who is ill. This is a theory first established by the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates over 2,500 years ago. Hahneman experimented with this theory and learned that by overdosing on quinine it produced the same symptoms as malaria, which is fever, sweating, chills and flu-like symptoms, but by diluting the substance into minute doses it would cure rather than produce the symptom.

In Homeopathy, a key premise is that every person is subject to a universal "vital energy" or "vitality", which needs to be balanced to promote the body's self-healing response. When this energy is disrupted or imbalanced, health problems develop. We can understand this if we use stress as a good example. If you are under a lot of stress and having a difficult time you tend to feel less energetic and healthy. You are more likely to develop illnesses when you are feeling stressed as stress puts more strain on the immune system, causing the immune system to become less effective, thus causing you to be more susceptible to illnesses. Homeopathic remedies aim to restore vital energy balance, which in effect promotes stimulation of the body's own healing response. So in effect, look after your body and your body will look after itself.

Remedies are made from mineral, plant and animal substances. What remedy you need depends on the nature of your symptoms and how you are feeling. Once you gather enough information about your symptoms such as: what aggravates them? what alleviates them? what times of day are they more prominent? and how long you have been suffering from this symptom and so on, a remedy can be determined to fit yourself. Also questions relating to your personality, likes and dislikes, food preferences, sleeping patterns etc, will further help determine the remedy you need. Typically, a person’s symptoms can be determined as being either chronic or acute, i.e. a symptom that has been around for a long time without improvement, like eczema or depression, or a symptom that has come on suddenly and is in need of urgent treatment, for example a fever or food poisoning.

Either can be treated homeopathically and again, you would take a case looking at the individual’s symptoms each time. This method of treatment makes many ailments treatable, even the increasing number of vague, undiagnosable symptoms and syndromes.

In the coming months I will be giving advice on how to support common ailments by using homeopathic remedies and would like to show you that many modern day ailments can be treated without resorting entirely to conventional medicines. If you have any questions or have any comments please write to: urbanhomeopathy@hotmail.co.uk

Please note that Homeopathy should not replace appropriate diagnosis and/or emergency care without professional assistance. As with any health issues it is vital that one has professional support and individual responsibility taken when choosing treatment.

Written by Aiko Dinan

Aiko Dinan moved from Japan to the UK in 1983. She grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and moved to London in 1993 to study Modern Languages at the University College London, as well as Cologne University in Germany. After graduating she went on to study Homeopathy for further 4 years at the Centre for Homeopathic Education, during which time she also completed a 2 year apprenticeship with a master Homeopath. Aiko also has a longstanding commitment in working in some of the most respected Homeopathic pharmacies in the UK, where she assists in making remedies as well as fulfilling the role as the in-house Homeopath.

Aiko is a member of The Alliance of Registered Homeopaths.